In the dry years,
there weren’t many mosquitoes.
Last summer, after several dry years,
even the sunflowers were sparse.
And each dry year,
growing numbers of grasshoppers.
This return-of-the-moisture summer,
many mosquitoes
many sunflowers.
Very, very few grasshoppers.

The Mimosa,
which I thought would die
three years ago
after it was brutalized by ice,
is now fully resplendent.

Roses are blooming
again.
Honeysuckle, which usually
by now
is half-eaten by grasshoppers,
has bloomed
again.

Then one recent morning,
as I walk through the grass,
I am horrified by the numbers
of tiny baby grasshoppers
that fling themselves
when my feet pass.
They are legion.
Another morning
I watch five chicken hens
chase a guinea
who had caught
a teenaged grasshopper.
This summer
we get it
all.